From Veteran columnist Chris Powell:
How easily President Trump can send Connecticut’s Democratic elected officials and its social-service industry into sanctimonious indignation and hysteria just by proclaiming the obvious.
It happened the other day when the president issued another executive order, this one striking a pose about crime and mental illness. “Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe,” Trump wrote. He endorsed “civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time.”
Trump’s “order” doesn’t require anyone to do anything about homelessness and mental illness, since the president has no such authority.
But at a press conference at the state Capitol last week leading Democrats and social-service officials shrieked that Trump was “criminalizing homelessness” and that state government has lots of policies and programs to cure homelessness and mental illness.
But contrary to the shrieking, Trump endorsed confining only those homeless or mentally ill who “pose risks to themselves or the public,” not all the homeless or mentally ill — and, of course, state government hasn’t come close to curing homelessness and mental illness.
Even a few Democrats at the press conference lamented that Governor Lamont, who had convened the event, had vetoed major housing legislation passed in the recent session of the General Assembly. But the legislation would have addressed homelessness and mental illness only indirectly by encouraging housing construction in the long term. It would not have provided more “supportive housing” and other help for the homeless and mentally ill.
Connecticut could use much more of those things but they will have to wait far behind the $100 million the Democrats have appropriated for raises for unionized state employees. There’s always plenty of money for that.
Connecticut also could use a few government mental institutions for the civil commitments Trump advocates. Until Trump made it politically incorrect for Democrats to acknowledge the obvious, decent people were still wondering aloud if Connecticut had been mistaken in closing its public mental hospitals decades ago and de-institutionalizing their residents without making better arrangements for them.
Until Trump issued his executive order, decent people in Connecticut also were acknowledging that homelessness has been increasing lately, a function of inflation, municipal zoning’s obstruction of simple housing, and the long decline of public education under social-promotion policy that has left the less-parented without work skills.
People living in Hamden particularly might be wondering if Trump is right about the need for more involuntary commitments of the homeless mentally ill. That’s because a few days before the press conference at the Capitol, two enclosed bus shelters adjacent to shopping centers in Hamden had been removed by city government because they had been taken over by homeless people who were obstructing and scaring people waiting for buses.
Hamden Mayor Lauren Garrett — a liberal Democrat, not a MAGA Republican — explained that social workers had made daily visits to the “unhoused individuals” at the bus shelters and offered them health care and housing but were repeatedly refused. So the town will replace the enclosed bus shelters with shelters that have roofs but no walls to shield passengers from the cold wind, in the hope that the “unhoused individuals” will move along to frighten people elsewhere.
This brilliant policy is just like Connecticut’s brilliant policy on troublesome bears — shoo them out of your yard and into your neighbor’s yard. Problem solved!
Even as the shrieking at the press conference at the Capitol got underway, police in Waterbury announced an arrest in the fatal shooting last month of 17-year-old Carizma Fox as she sought to break up a fight on Willow Street in the city. The suspect is a homeless and unemployed man with a long criminal record involving drugs and assault.
Will anyone in Waterbury be politically incorrect enough to wonder aloud whether the girl might still be alive if Connecticut had more involuntary commitments?
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Lennie , this is a once in a once in a life time opportunity to introduce the OIB Straight-Jacket to Federal and State Authorities. The last two months I conducted some testing of the OIB SJ2025. We were able to keep Robert Teixera under control for a month straight.
Lennie, you have connections with Donald J. Trump. Set up a meeting and I’ll do a demonstration with RT and a few homeless/vagrant from the streets of Washington D.C. The solution is simple: Strap them up on the spot and leave them there. No need to provide housing, counseling, mental health or any other Social Service.
Powell raises more questions, that have lingered for years in the minds of citizen-voters and legislators who have looked for simple answers to observed weakness in our “systems of care” for citizens, the oversight of outcomes routinely and publicly, and any enforcement actions committed to in legislation. The interlocking nature of many of the issues makes for complications but the lack of reporting, regular and uniform, allow little of significance to be known and/or accomplished.
Went off to Boston last week to study the history of the American Revolution up close for several days, read two books carrying written history of that time, and listened to current historians relate more facts as to the gatherings of our forebearers and the way that communications, the different Colonial cultures, and a common purpose to resist the oppressions suffered of an imperial King helped form the challenge to Great Britain’s power.
Straight jackets work in specific situations but are not appropriate as a remedy for larger groups of humans, in my opinion. What does conversation with a neighbor, whose opinion you do not know for sure, offer as a potential direction for improvement of civic connections in Bridgeport? Stop by Fruta at 9AM on Saturday August 30, 2025 for another session of CASUAL CIVICS CONVERSATIONS to listen and to offer your knowledge and perspective of municipal topics. If you don’t know something, don’t know where to ask, and hold onto your questions then why vote in November? As part of the Charter Review Commission, which has a major addition to the Charter in dealing with ethics, including conflicts of interest and other corrupt practices, I wish to assist all in becoming better informed voters. See you there. Time will tell.
John,
Not quite sure of your stance regarding Powell’s column.
Do you agree/disagree that Ct Dems are over-reacting on the Federal takeover of the DC police department?
Earlier this week, Sen. Gaston opined quite strongly that it was a “targeted assault on blue states and blue cities…We cannot allow our city to become a testing ground for unconstitutional force.”
Do you agree with this perspective or do you think it hyperbolic?
So Trump makes drastic — Draconian — cuts to health care, social services, and education (even as he builds a mighty secret police force — ICE — and a gulag archipelago) and then proclaims that he’s going to appropriately address indigence (chronic unemployment, crime and homelessness) by sending the National Guard, a military arm not authorized to police civilians except under exceptional (martial law) circumstances, into DC.
As has been asserted by many mental health professionals — even from his own family — this POTUS is a mentally ill, low-IQ megalomaniac placed in office by $. He’s a low-IQ Hitler. He has no business being in charge of anything, much less the most powerful country in the world.
When such a person speaks about having the prerogative to police the indigent/homeless, it has to send shivers down the spines of all those that are wary of his authoritarian whimsy and related desire to silence criticism and dissent — after all, a movement such as “occupy” could appear to be just a situation of mentally ill, homeless individuals (gathered to promote crime and anarchy) that must be confined and controlled for their own good. The variety of socially-problematic situations presenting as requiring/justifying forced control is virtually limitless for a totally-unhinged, frontal-lobe compromised autocrat enacting the agenda of right-wing reactionaries (Trump/MAGA).
Mr. Powell, as is often the case with his editorials, fails to see the forest for the trees when it comes to evaluation of extraordinary government action/inaction in the face of both exigencies and non-exigencies.
Here we have a non-exigency in Washington, DC that Mr. Powell fails to recognize as such even as he fails to recognize the political-social danger of Trump’s extraordinary decision to use military presence for non-military purposes. He also fails to recognize that this dangerous, inappropriate measure taken by Trump is nothing more than diversion to get the “dogs” off his pedophile tracks, even as he desensitizes the people of the US to extreme, inappropriate measures that might be enacted by an autocrat to suppress and control a population. Not a very astute editorial position on the part of Mr. Powell.
The Democrats seem to have lost their way and are doing whatever they can to support the narrative, Orange man bad. A bit of advise, both Democrats and Republicans do not always feel safe in big cities. It may not be the best hill to choose to fight on. Do I agree with arresting homeless people for being homeless absolutely not. But denying a problem exists when your eyes see otherwise does not make that problem go away. The State Dept issued a Travel advisory to anyone visiting Venezuela, pretty much telling them to get their wills in order before you go. The Murder rate in that country is 27 % per 100 people. Compare that with Washington DC and they are neck and neck The statistics say that the Murder rate is down 12 to 17 % in DC depending on who you want to believe. Clearly there is a problem, Why not be bi partisan about it instead of grand standing all the time?
John, Perhaps you meant to say that the rates are ‘per 100,000’ people? And are you looking at US cities where rates per 100,000 vary from year to year and Hartford CT came in at # 11 in spite of a significant decrease? Perhaps we ought to be seeking out trend data, although that might run counter to the Heritage Foundation’s position on public data made open, accountable, transparent and honest to the taxpaying public? Time will tell.
Table 1. 24 U.S. Cities’ Homicide Number, Rate, & Percent Change for 2023 – 20242
Headings for ‘squashed columns’ below:
City
2023
Homicides
2023
Population
Estimate
2023
Homicide
Rate
2024
Homicides
Current
Population
Estimate
2024
Homicide
Rate
% Change
Rate
1. St. Louis, MO 158 293,109 53.9 150 275,506 54.4 0.9
2. New Orleans, LA 193 376,035 51.3 124 357,767 34.7 -32.4
3. Detroit, MI 250 636,644 39.3 203 631,524 32.1 -18.3
4. Washington, D.C. 265 672,079 39.4 186 681,683 27.3 -30.7
5. Atlanta, GA 132 510,826 25.8 127 514,465 24.7 -4.3
6. Indianapolis, IN 168 874,182 19.2 209 876,665 23.8 24
7. Richmond, VA 62 229,247 27.0 53 230,017 23.0 -14.8
8. Chicago, IL 499 2,664,454 18.7 573 2,638,159 21.7 16
9. Compton, CA 21 90,986 23.1 18 89,516 20.1 -13
10. Oakland, CA 118 438,072 26.9 81 435,024 18.6 -30.9
11. Hartford, CT 36 119,669 30.1 22 119,626 18.4 -38.9
12. Rochester, NY 47 207,264 22.7 37 206,078 18.0 -20.7
13. Syracuse, NY 18 146,211 12.3 22 145,171 15.2 23.6
14. Greensboro, NC 75 302,307 24.8 43 304,279 14.1 -43.1
15. Dallas, TX 242 1,302,868 18.6 183 1,302,753 14.0 -24.7
16. Buffalo, NY 39 274,686 14.2 38 273,720 13.9 -2.1
17. Pittsburgh, PA 43 303,620 14.2 42 303,413 13.8 -2.8
18. Newark, NJ 53 307,188 17.3 37 303,065 12.2 -29.5
19. Denver, CO 85 713,734 11.9 60 716,234 8.4 -29.4
20. Los Angeles, CA 324 3,857,897 8.4 268 3,795,936 7.1 -15.5
21. Lexington, KY 14 321,122 5.3 22 319,329 6.9 30.2
22. New York City, NY 345 8,516,202 4.1 377 8,097,282 4.7 14.6
23. Omaha, NE 16 488,197 3.3 19 480,194 4.0 21.2
24. Boston, MA 34 663,972 5.1 24 646,622 3.7 -27.5
United States 18,737 332,387,540 5.6 N/A N/A N/A N/A
JML you are correct sir, 27, Per 100,000 , It was early..